Episode III:
The Old Fan’s Commentary OnThe Star Wars Holiday Special

My brain hurts. Just watching this was a chore. I’ve now seen it five times in my life, which was five too many. I can’t even introduce it properly because it’s terrible in ways that are beyond description.

Carrie Fisher was out of her mind on blow.

I wouldn’t watch it in advance, despite the fact that I’ll be streaming it from a YouTube version that’s been available for years. In this case, I strongly advise that you pay attention to my commentary rather than the Holiday Special.

It’s really bad. It’s not so bad it’s good, it’s just bad.

Mark Hamill was recovering from a car accident that severely injured his face.

It was bad when I first saw it in 1978. It only aired once and never again. It has never been released on any form of home video or official streaming. It survives because by 1978, people were starting to buy VCRs.

The Holiday Special is so bad that George Lucas has disowned it, saying:

“If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.”

I have no idea.

Fortunately (or not) for posterity, the Internet means that it will never die.

This commentary is about my feelings when seeing this bizarre monstrosity for the first time. It’s the only kind of commentary I can make.

I’ll not be playing The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy this week. The Holiday Special is about 1:40. I was faced with the choice of either leaving in H2G2 and stretching this madness into two weeks; or save your sanity by bumping H2G2.

It’s 1978. Everything we’ve come to take for granted didn’t exist. There was no streaming, no Blurays, no DVDs, no CDs, no personal computers of note, no Internet, and even the telephone was only a land-line to your house. VCRs were beginning to hit the market. Cassette tapes had become the medium of choice for personal music.

Star Wars had hit a year before and changed everything. There were no summer blockbusters before Star Wars. There were no gigantic merchandising enterprises before Star Wars. There was no science fiction of note except very, very infrequently before Star Wars.

When the Special aired around US Thanksgiving, Lucas was at work on the sequel to Star Wars. I don’t recall if he’d named it at that time. I’d been actively in fandom for at least a year, having joined Star Base Andromeda by then.

While we thought it odd that there would be a holiday-themed special in Star Wars, it could work. The notion of a Wookiee Life Day — if fleshed-out — could be a parallel to Christmas.

What we got was incomprehensible. There were really only two good things about it:

The entire main cast was in it. According to Harrison Ford, it was stipulated in their contracts and they had no legal way out.

Really. It’s all in there — and more. It’s rather indescribable, hence the commentary.

We’ll be streaming the video via YouTube, so feel free to follow along. Again, I advise not watching in advance, nor listening to anything other than my commentary. It’s quite possible to go mad attempting to figure this out.

If you want to follow along, the video is right here; or you can see it at:

As usual, I’ll have The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and topical music by Maestro John Williams sprinkled throughout.

Star Wars original title crawl.

As with last week’s Episode I, I’m streaming the film if you wish to follow along. I wouldn’t ordinarily do that, but I’m commenting on The Despecialized Edition.

The Despecialized Edition is a fan restoration that lovingly returns the film to nearly the theatrical version. Every shot has been color-corrected, as LucasFilm has never gotten the color right. All scenes added after 1977 have been removed. The original Fox logo and fanfare, original LucasFilm logo, and the original title crawl have been restored.

My HD copy is as close as you can come to a pristine copy of the film reels on opening night.

I’ll not be streaming in HD, nor will the stream be available except during the live show. If you want it (and I highly recommend it) ,find it it the way I did. Bittorrent is your friend.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live Sundays on //aNONradio.net// 20:00-22:00 UTC. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

As always, to set the stage:

It’s 1977. Everything we’ve come to take for granted didn’t exist. There was no streaming, no MP3s, no Internet, no personal computers of note. Powerful computers were the size of a warehouse and were only owned by governments, universities, and very large businesses.

Even phones were radically different. There was only one kind: the land-line to your house.

I was 12 years old — the precise target demographic of Star Wars.

I first saw Star Wars a few days after it opened. One has to recall that this was before Star Wars was a phenomenon. Where today one might spend all day in line for an opening, no one knew anything about Star Wars.

I don’t remember much about that first screening because it was totally eclipsed by my second.

The first screening was in an average-sized theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Theaters at that time were generally converted from live theaters and seated several hundred people at least.

The theater was jam-packed. By then, word-of-mouth had spread and people were coming back for additional showings.

One must remember that at that time, there was no home video nor streaming. Films were released for a limited run, and then never again. If you wanted to see a movie, you saw it in a theater or not at all. This partly accounts for Star Wars‘ success. It was so much fun that people flocked back to the theaters rather than miss seeing it a second, third, fourth, or fifth time.

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Star Wars in the last forty years. It may well number in the thousands. I’ve watched it multiple times every year.

Star Wars is my favorite film of all time. Despite being a Trekkie almost from birth, Star Wars is a film that I can watch my entire life and never get bored.

My first screening of the film completely astonished me. This was totally brand new. There had certainly been space-opera adventures before, but nothing like this. The special effects were simply groundbreaking. The story is probably the perfect Hero’s Journey and never gets old.

As I say, I remember little from the first screening other than being completely blown away. I watched it with my father and best friend and remember walking out of the theater saying to my friend:

“Wow. That was way better than Logan’s Run.”

Keep in mind that pre-Star Wars, there was very little science fiction, neither in films nor television. Star Wars changed everything. After that, there has been a non-stop torrent of science fiction. Logan’s Run was the most recent SF film of note, also with groundbreaking special effects.

They couldn’t hold a candle to Star Wars.

However, my first screening became irrelevant after my second. I watched it at the Indian Hills Theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Sadly, it was demolished in 2001. It’s now a hospital parking lot.

In 1977, it was still in its heyday — and it had a CinemaScope screen.

A CinemaScope theater.

You’re probably unfamiliar with CinemaScope. It was a very short-lived widescreen format which had a huge curved screen. The effect was the create a more immersive experience by attempting to cover the viewer’s periphery.

Boy, did it ever.

The interior auditorium of the Indian Hills was circular in shape and seated 810 patrons, with 662 on the main floor and 148 on the balcony.

When I arrived for my second showing, the house was already packed. There was absolutely nowhere to sit except dead-center of the front row.

In modern theaters, one avoids such seats due to severe parallax distortion. The Indian Hills, however, had a significant distance between the front row and the screen.

I saw in the front row, dead center …

It was an experience I’ll never forget. The curved screen made it completely fill my field of view, including my periphery.

The experience was barely describable — which is part of why I’m making the commentary. I actually became nauseous during the Trench Run.

To follow along with the amazing adventure of a 12-year-old watching Star Wars in CinemaScope, go to:

As usual, I’ll have The Hitchiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and topical music by Maestro John Williams sprinkled throughout.

This time around, I made a very conscious effort to speak in my General American accent. Additionally, in the immortal words of my Junior High drama teacher, I have “dropped my jaw and enunciated.”

Hopefully this will make for a better listening experience.

I’m also streaming the film if you wish to follow along. I wouldn’t ordinarily do that, but I’m commenting on The Despecialized Edition.

The Despecialized Edition is a fan restoration that lovingly returns the film to nearly the theatrical version. Every shot has been color-corrected, as LucasFilm has never gotten the color right. All scenes added after 1977 have been removed. The original Fox logo and fanfare, original LucasFilm logo, and the original title crawl have been restored.

My HD copy is as close as you can come to a pristine copy of the film reels on opening night.

I’ll not be streaming in HD, nor will the stream be available except during the live show. If you want it (and I highly recommend it) ,find it it the way I did. Bittorrent is your friend.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live Sundays on //aNONradio.net// 20:00-22:00 UTC. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

As always, to set the stage:

It’s 1977. Everything we’ve come to take for granted didn’t exist. There was no streaming, no MP3s, no Internet, no personal computers of note. Powerful computers were the size of a warehouse and were only owned by governments, universities, and very large businesses.

Even phones were radically different. There was only one kind: the land-line to your house.

I was 12 years old — the precise target demographic of Star Wars.

I first saw Star Wars a few days after it opened. One has to recall that this was before Star Wars was a phenomenon. Where today one might spend all day in line for an opening, no one knew anything about Star Wars.

I don’t remember much about that first screening because it was totally eclipsed by my second.

The first screening was in an average-sized theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Theaters at that time were generally converted from live theaters and seated several hundred people at least.

The theater was jam-packed. By then, word-of-mouth had spread and people were coming back for additional showings.

One must remember that at that time, there was no home video nor streaming. Films were released for a limited run, and then never again. If you wanted to see a movie, you saw it in a theater or not at all. This partly accounts for Star Wars‘ success. It was so much fun that people flocked back to the theaters rather than miss seeing it a second, third, fourth, or fifth time.

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Star Wars in the last forty years. It may well number in the thousands. I’ve watched it multiple times every year.

Star Wars is my favorite film of all time. Despite being a Trekkie almost from birth, Star Wars is a film that I can watch my entire life and never get bored.

My first screening of the film completely astonished me. This was totally brand new. There had certainly been space-opera adventures before, but nothing like this. The special effects were simply groundbreaking. The story is probably the perfect Hero’s Journey and never gets old.

As I say, I remember little from the first screening other than being completely blown away. I watched it with my father and best friend and remember walking out of the theater saying to my friend:

“Wow. That was way better than Logan’s Run.”

Keep in mind that pre-Star Wars, there was very little science fiction, neither in films nor television. Star Wars changed everything. After that, there has been a non-stop torrent of science fiction. Logan’s Run was the most recent SF film of note, also with groundbreaking special effects.

They couldn’t hold a candle to Star Wars.

However, my first screening became irrelevant after my second. I watched it at the Indian Hills Theater in Omaha, Nebraska. Sadly, it was demolished in 2001. It’s now a hospital parking lot.

In 1977, it was still in its heyday — and it had a CinemaScope screen.

A CinemaScope theater.

You’re probably unfamiliar with CinemaScope. It was a very short-lived widescreen format which had a huge curved screen. The effect was the create a more immersive experience by attempting to cover the viewer’s periphery.

Boy, did it ever.

The interior auditorium of the Indian Hills was circular in shape and seated 810 patrons, with 662 on the main floor and 148 on the balcony.

When I arrived for my second showing, the house was already packed. There was absolutely nowhere to sit except dead-center of the front row.

In modern theaters, one avoids such seats due to severe parallax distortion. The Indian Hills, however, had a significant distance between the front row and the screen.

I saw in the front row, dead center …

It was an experience I’ll never forget. The curved screen made it completely fill my field of view, including my periphery.

The experience was barely describable — which is part of why I’m making the commentary. I actually became nauseous during the Trench Run.

To follow along with the amazing adventure of a 12-year-old watching Star Wars in CinemaScope, go to:

The Old Fan’s Commentary On Space: 1999

There’s an Old Fan’s Commentary On Space:1999 this week on Tales From SYL Ranch!

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live Sundays, 20:00-22:00 UTC on //aNONradio.net//

We hadn’t planned to do this, but we’re using a new rig and providing additional streaming. Rather than risk it falling to pieces during the Old Fan’s Commentary on Star Wars (Sunday, May 7th and 14th), we decided to test it first on a known disaster.

We’ll only be commenting on one Space: 1999 episode: S01E01 – “Breakaway.” It’s a wonderful example of the show getting many things very, very right — while simultaneously being the dumbest premise ever conceived Spoilers.

Space: 1999 is so schizophrenic that it’s unlikely there will be future commentaries. It’s noteworthy for a few reasons, the most obvious being the then-state-of-the-art special effects. Some Space: 1999 model and effects artists later worked on Star Wars and were part of ILM‘s founding team.

Variations on the Eagle’s mission-specific pods. This is something the show did very, very right.

Space: 1999‘s Eagle was extremely detailed and featured a practical, modular design. It’s one of the things Space: 1999 got very, very right. To this day, the Eagle is one of the most revered (and outright coolest) spaceship designs ever imagined. It often appears in the background of other films as an Easter Egg.

The Eagle with a passenger pod on a Moonbase Alpha launchpad. Note the docking mechanism on the left and a parked moonbggy on the right.

A always, the Old Fan’s Commentary will attempt to focus more on what was happening in science fiction fandom at the time rather than interesting tidbits about the film.

As always, we’ll have The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and topical music sprinkled throughout.

To set the stage:

It’s September of 1975. You’re ten years old. You’re a huge Star Trek fan. That in turn led you to SF literature, in particular Larry Niven. In 1973, Niven adapted one of his short-stories, “The Soft Weapon,” into an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series.

You quickly discovered that “The Soft Weapon” is part of a much larger Known Space universe. Because Niven is a stickler for scientific accuracy, you’ve learned to demand it. In 1975, all science fiction fans demanded it.

Other than Star Trek: The Animated Series, there’s been no science fiction of note — neither in TV nor film — for over five years. There’s a burgeoning Star Trek fan community in the US that’s just finding its legs.

That fan community constantly butts heads with Old Fans. The Old Fans grew up with nothing but literature. They find filmed science fiction to be banal and insipid by comparison.

This absolutely includes Star Trek. In 1975, there was a clear delineation between “real fans” and “Trekkies.”

Through the grapevine, you hear about a new show, Space:1999. It has known stars in the lead roles. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain had starred in Mission: Impossible. Barry Morse had spent four years chasing Dr. Richard Kimball in The Fugutive.

That all sounds good. Production stills begin appearing in certain magazines, and those look good. The models look good, the sets look good, the space suits all look good.

The premise of the series is patently ludicrous. Even a 10-year-old knew that Spoilers.

Those are the things in your mind as you tune in (on low-def broadcast TV).

We’ll be trying a couple of experiments this time around. In addition to the podcast stream of the commentary, we’ll be making a low-res version of the episode available for streaming — but only during the show! If this works, we’ll do the same to the next two weeks’ Old Fan Commentary On Star Wars.

The YouTube version has so far survived a couple of years without a DMCA notice.

If you want higher definition, find a legal stream (or an illegal one, just don’t tell me about it).

Sunday’s tracklist:

“When Twilight Falls On NGC 891”

Space 1999: “Main Titles”

Space 1999 – War Games: “Armageddon”

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Primary Phase – Fit the Sixth (S01E06)

Space 1999: “Breakaway”

Introduction To the Old Fan’s Commentary On Space: 1999

The Old Fan’s Commentary On Space: 1999

Space: 1999: “Theme Montage”

The Star Wars Holiday Special
“Can we air just twenty minutes of Chewie noises??”
– Jack Packard

What were fans doing in 1975 when Space:1999 premiered? Listen to Tales From SYL Ranch find out!

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live
Sundays, 20:00-22:00 UTC on
//aNONradio.net//

[Spoilers]
Why Space: 1999 Has the Dumbest Premise Ever Concieved

You can’t blow the Moon out of orbit.

Seriously, that’s it, right there: the basic premise of the show is ludicrously impossible. Science Fiction fans are the most demanding viewers in existence. If you screw up in such a flagrantly stupid fashion, you’ve probably lost your audience and don’t know it.

The Moon is not a billiard ball that can be knocked off its trajectory by something sufficiently massive. You can’t put a rocket engine on it. It’s so large as to be occasionally classified as a dwarf planet.

If you struck the Moon with sufficient force to knock it out of orbit, that’s not what would happen. Instead, you’d start with a very deep hole. It would get deeper until such time as the Moon itself couldn’t withstand the stress. The Moon would then crack like a gigantic egg — the difference being that it would spew white-hot volcanic rocks the size of other planets’ moons.

If you were lucky, you’d wind up with a few big rocks and change. With more luck, the rocks will stay in the Moon’s orbit, meaning we’d suddenly have pieces of Moon orbiting the Earth in roughly the same spot.

If you weren’t lucky, the rocks would be small. You’d then have a nice, new asteroid belt around Earth in former Moon’s orbit.

In either case, risk of extinction by Moonrock becomes very likely. Regardless, there will be Earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, tidal waves, and tectonic/volcanic eruptions. The tilt of the Earth could change.

Worse is the location location of the explosion. The writers keep referring to “the dark side of the Moon” as though that’s meaningful. In fact, the “dark side” of the Moon isn’t dark. It’s just the side of the Moon not facing Earth.

The Moon’s orbit and rotation are such that only one side of it faces Earth. Until the Space Age, astronomers didn’t know what the other side of the Moon looked like. They called it “the dark side” to indicate that it was a big blank spot on the map.

That means is that they were dumping nuclear waste as far from Earth as possible — which is a good idea from a radiation standpoint. It was an idea that had been bounced around in science fiction since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

However, if you hit the Moon with force sufficient to knock it out of orbit, you’re doing so on the face exactly opposite Earth. The aforementioned massive, white-hot volcanic rock would come spewing straight at Earth.

Earth-bound disasters are hinted-at in the episode, but not enough thought was given to it. People would die by the billions. Civilization might be reduced to the Stone Age or worse.

The idea of the Moon blowing out of orbit is galactically stupid.

That doesn’t even begin to touch the faster-than-light speeds the Moon would require to reach another planet every week.

Space: 1999 is very schizophrenic. On the one hand, there are the many things it gets right. Unfortunately, it’s in the service of a laughable premise; often featuring plots with no internal logic.

“It’s sci-fi, anything can happen, so who needs to explain it?” seems to have been the writers’ motto.

This week, we’ll be talking about what it was like as a teenaged Star Trek fan to see the film for the first time in 1979. We’ll also talk about fandom of that period and what it was like to live through it.

We’ll also have the usual episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy. After all, you can’t listen to Bill talk for an hour without wanting to slit your wrists.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

Listen to Bill discuss the first Star Trek movie (the one people usually like to forget).

This week, we’ll be talking about what it was like as a teenaged Star Trek fan to see the film for the first time in 1979. We’ll also talk about fandom of that period and what it was like to live through it.

We’ll also have the usual episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and a smattering of amusing bits throughout.

After all, you can’t listen to Bill talk for an hour without wanting to slit your wrists.

Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.

Listen to Bill discuss the first Star Trek movie (the one people usually like to forget).

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